ReelTemps Expands Into the Caribbean: the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Islands

The Caribbean is here. ReelTemps now covers six new regions across the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and the Lesser Antilles. This is blue water billfish and wahoo country, and you can now read it the same way you read our US and Mexico regions: satellite sea-surface temperature, chlorophyll color, and depth and structure together.

Before the regions, the same honest caveat we gave for Mexico, because it matters just as much here.

About the data: no buoys out here

Our US charts lean on NOAA buoy networks for ground-truth calibration. Caribbean waters do not have that. There are no NOAA NDBC buoys off the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Jamaica or the islands, so these charts are not buoy calibrated the way our California, Gulf and East Coast regions are. They stand on the satellite passes themselves.

In practice, pay even closer attention to the breaks, the gradients and the color edges, which is where the fish usually are anyway. A sharp temperature or color change over a short distance tells you more than any single reading. We would rather be straight with you about this than pretend the data is something it is not.

One more thing up front: every island nation here runs its own licensing and regulations. Seasons, limits, protected species and permit rules differ from place to place, and they change. Check current local rules and carry the right license before you run. Nothing below is a substitute for that.

Wall and dropoff country

Most of this coverage shares one defining feature: deep blue water sits remarkably close to shore, and the edge where the shallow banks fall into the deep is the whole game.

The Bahamas, from Grand Bahama and the Abacos down through Chub Cay, Nassau and the Tongue of the Ocean, is classic wall trolling. The Northwest Providence Channel and the Tongue of the Ocean walls are the lines to study, where temperature breaks and color changes stack bait against the dropoff. Wahoo run strong in the cooler months, with mahi, blackfin and yellowfin tuna, and blue and white marlin through the warmer season.

The Southern Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, the Exumas, Long Island, Crooked and Acklins, and the Turks and Caicos banks, fish the same wall and cut idea, with offshore structure like the Columbus Bank and Mouchoir area holding fish well off the beach.

Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Jamaica

Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands give you deep water almost absurdly close to the beach. The famous North Drop off St Thomas is one of the best blue marlin grounds on earth, with the South Drop fishing the same way. Blue marlin lead from summer into fall, with wahoo, tuna and mahi around them.

Jamaica fishes steep and close too, with the north coast wall off Port Antonio and Kingston, plus the shallower Pedro Bank offshore to the south. Blue marlin headline, with wahoo, tuna and dolphin working the same edges.

The Lesser Antilles

The Leeward Islands, St Martin, St Kitts, Antigua and Guadeloupe, and the Windward Islands, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada and Barbados, drop off hard very close to shore, with strong current seams running between the islands. FAD fishing is common, and Barbados is known for a winter wahoo run. Wahoo, blue marlin, yellowfin tuna and mahi are the headliners, concentrated where the current bends around structure and the color and temperature edges line up.

How to fish it

The method is the same everywhere we cover. Stack the signals. Find an SST break where warm blue meets slightly cooler or greener water, find the chlorophyll color change that marks a bait line, and see where those fall over real structure like the wall, a cut or a bank edge. Where all three agree, you have a high percentage place to start, instead of burning fuel across empty blue.

That is six regions live today, and we are already working on the Pacific side of Central America next. One membership unlocks all of it. Go read the water, and let us know what you find.